The Time Machine

Study Questions – answer on a separate sheet of paper

CHAPTERS 1 AND 2
1. Where, specifically, is the first chapter of this story set? Be as exact as you can.
2. According to the Time Traveller, what is the Fourth Dimension?
3. According to the Medical Man, how is the Fourth Dimension different from the other three?
4. Which character is an argumentative redhead?
5. How large was the first Time Machine?
6. What happened to the first Time Machine?
7. Which character, besides the Time Traveller, is late for dinner?
8. How do the other characters know that the Time Traveller has been detained?
9. What kind of food does the Time Traveller crave?
10. What is one condition the Time Traveller sets before telling his story?

CHAPTERS 3 AND 4
1. What happens when the Time Traveller stops?
2. Where did he land?
3. How does the Time Traveller change the weather?
4. What did the Time Traveller do to be sure that the little people would not tamper with the time machine
or damage it?
5. In approximately what year had the Time Traveller landed?
6. What did the little people eat?
7. After eating dinner, what did the Time Traveller attempt to learn?
8. On his walk after eating, what did the Time Traveller notice about the small houses and cottages?

CHAPTER 5
1. Returning from his long walk, what causes the Time Traveller to panic?
2. What does the Time Traveller think he hears when he bangs his fist on the pedestal of the Sphinx?
3. How does the Time Traveller make a new friend?
4. What is his new friend’s name?
5. What lesson did the Time Traveller learn from his new friend?
6. What does the Time Traveller call the people from the lower world?
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CHAPTERS 6 AND 7
1. What sound does the Time Traveller hear on his descent into the well?
2. What does he do when he feels a soft hand touching him?
3. Why is the Time Traveller unable to speak to the Morlocks using language he has learned?
4. How does the Time Traveller learn that the Morlocks are carnivorous?
5. What piece of equipment does the Time Traveller wish he had taken into the future?
6. Now that he has seen the Morlocks, what does the Time Traveller decide he must make for himself?
What does hedecide to find?
7. Where does the Time Traveller decide to go after he returns to Weena?
8. Reclining under the stars, what food does the Time Traveller decide that the Morlocks must be eating?

CHAPTERS 8 AND 9
1. What, according to the Time Traveller, was the original purpose of the Palace of Green Porcelain?
2. What does the Time Traveller find that causes him and Weena to dance?
3. Why is Weena nervous as they go further into the gallery?
4. At night, what does Weena want to play with that troubles the Time Traveller?
5. Why are the Morlocks able to attack the Time Traveller when he sleeps by the fire?
6. Why can’t he light another fire?
7. The Time Traveller says that as the Morlocks attack him “The darkness seemed to grow luminous.”
What causes this?
8. What does the Time Traveller lose?
9. At the end of the chapter, what does he find?

CHAPTERS 10-12 AND EPILOGUE

1. How does the Time Traveller get inside the pedestal to his Time Machine?
2. What is the condition of the Machine? Why did the Morlocks take care of the machine?
3. After he finds the Machine, what causes the Time Traveller’s fear?
4. How does he fight off the Morlocks?
5. Where does the Time Traveller go in his Machine?
6. What kind of creature scares the Time Traveller and causes him to go further into the future?
7. Upon returning to his laboratory, what does the Time Traveller see Mrs. Watchett do?
8. After telling his story to his guests, how does the Time Traveller reassure himself that the story is really
true?
9. What does the Medical Man want to take with him?
10. Who returns the next day to visit the Time Traveller?

Discussion Questions – answer on a separate sheet of paper.

CHAPTERS 1 AND 2
1. What do the other characters think happened to the Machine? Based on what you know about the
Victorian era,
what do you think they believe happened to the time machine? Even though they were well educated men
in what
ways were they ignorant?
2. Describe the Time Traveller. How would you describe his personality? Do you like the Time Traveller?
What about
him is likable? What do you not like?
3. What scientific principle does the Time Traveller try to convince the others to accept? Why do you think
they have
trouble believing his theory about the Fourth Dimension? Why do you think he takes the Psychologist’s
hand rather
than using his own hand to turn the lever on the small Time Machine?
4. What does the Medical Man mean when he says, “It sounds plausible enough to-night...but wait until to-
morrow.
Wait for the common sense of the morning.” (10). In what present-day situations might the Medical Man’s
thinking
be helpful to you or someone you know?
5. What do you think the Time Traveller’s guests thought when their host first appeared in the doorway?
6. Reread the first paragraph of the second chapter. How did the personality and characteristics of the
Time Traveller
affect the others’ acceptance of his story? Should we consider the messenger when we consider the value
of the
information? What do you think the narrator meant when he said that his mind “was woolgathering”? (15)
7. What questions do the guests ask one another while the Time Traveller is dressing for dinner? How does
each person’s
questions reflect the type of character which they are? (15-16).

CHAPTERS 3 AND 4
1. Why does the Time Traveller decide to go into the future rather than the past?
2. Describe the Time Traveller’s journey. Did you find the description of his journey realistic? Why or why
not?
3. What details does the writer give to make his travel through space seem believable? What may cause
the “twinkling
succession of light and dark”? ..the sunbelt to sway “up and down, from solstice to solstice”? ...the
buildings to appear
and disappear “like vapor”?
4. What does the Time Traveller fear when stopping his voyage?
5. What does the Time Traveller think about his own civilization? What does the Time Traveller expect to
find in the future?
6. Describe the people the Time Traveller meets. What do they look like? Describe their personalities. What
does the Time
Traveller find unusual about them? After meeting the little people, why do you think the Time Traveller
feels he might
have “built the time machine in vain” (28)? In what ways do the little people fail to meet the expectations
of the Time Traveller?
7. Why do you think the little people become bored with learning language (page 31)? Thinking about
people who are
bored easily, what, if any, characteristics do they share?
8. Apart from the people, describe the setting of this future world. How is this world Utopian in nature?
9. While walking, the Time Traveller notices how alike the people are (33). What advantages are there in
having a
society in which people are very much alike? What are the disadvantages? Why does the Time Traveller
use the word
“communism” to describe their society?
10. Reread the second paragraph on page 33. How does the Time Traveller describe the relationships
between the sexes?
How does he feel about civilization’s move toward a more androgynous society? Would society today be
helped by
these ideas? Why or why not?
11. How does the Time Traveller interpret all that he has seen thus far? What does he mean when he says,
“The ruddy
sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind”? (34).
12. What important ideas during the Time Traveller’s age are no longer important? Consider concepts like
love, loyalty,
courage, intelligence, energy, creativity, etc. How does this compare with your own ideas about Utopia?
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CHAPTER 5
1. In the morning, how have the Time Traveller’s feelings about the lost Time Machine changed? What
clues help him
understand what may have happened to the Machine?
2. What “peculiar feature” attracts the Time Traveller’s attention? What does he learn about the wells?
What other
important questions does he have about this society?
3. Describe the Time Traveller’s new friend. Why does the Time Traveller believe she becomes anxious
when he is going
to leave?
4. Describe the creature the Time Traveller meets while under cover from the sun. What does it look like?
What does
it do? Why did Wells capitalize the word “Thing”? (53-54)
5. What important conclusion does the Time Traveller reach after experiencing the monster among the
ruins? Why does
he go below into the wells?
6. What, if anything, does Wells seem to be saying about capitalism or class differences? Why did Wells
conclude that
man could eventually split into species such as the Eloi and the Morlocks?
7. What is the significance of the Sphinx in the novel? What might it represent or symbolize?

CHAPTERS 6 AND 7
1. Even though he is very curious, why does the Time Traveller not immediately go down into those wells?
What does
he do instead?
2. Why did Wells choose to give the Morlocks a completely different language from the Eloi?
3. What lessons does the Time Traveller learn from his journey to the Under-world?
4. How is the central conflict in the novel made worse by the events in chapter six?
5. What is he afraid of now that he didn’t fear before? What does the Time Traveller mean when he says,
“Before, I felt
as a man might feel who had fallen in a pit: my concern was the pit and how to get out of it. Now I felt like
a beast
in a trap, whose enemy would come upon him soon.” (66) What distinction is he making?
6. Which of the Time Traveller’s previous questions are answered by his trip to the Under-world? What new
questions
does he have now that he has been there?
7. We learn why the Time Traveller was limping in chapter two. What might have caused the limp?
8. Why does the Time Traveller decide to take Weena back into his own time?
9. The Time Traveller implies that the Eloi may have created the situation allowing them to be preyed upon
by the Morlocks.
How has this happened? Do you agree that the Eloi are responsible for their current position in the food
chain?
CHAPTERS 8 AND 9
1. How does the Time Traveller’s visit to the Palace help his situation and ease his worry? Why is the Time
Traveller’s
confidence ironic?
2. Why did he write his name on a weapon he found?
3. Reread the last paragraph on page 78. What, according to the Time Traveller, is “the enormous waste of
labour”? Do
you agree with his argument?
4. Reread the passage about the fight between the Morlocks and the Time Traveller. What, if anything,
does this remind you of?
5. Ultimately, what do you think happens to Weena? How much responsibility does the Time Traveller bear
for her fate?
6. Why did the Time Traveller say, “For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a nightmare”?
(88). What
does he mean by this? Have you ever been through something (or can you imagine something) that was
so painful
you pretended it was a dream?
A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine 16
7. What did the Time Traveller mean when he said, “Now, in this old familiar room, it is more like the
sorrow of a
dream than an actual loss”? (89).
8. Is there anything about the Morlocks with which we can empathize? Why or why not? Why do you think
several of
them rush into the flames?

CHAPTERS 10-12 AND EPILOGUE

1. What does the Time Traveller mean when he says that “the dream of the human intellect...committed
suicide”? (90)
2. What does the Time Traveller mean when he says he understands what the beauty of the Over-world
covers? In
addition to the “things” that the Over-world covers, what ugly ideas does it hide?
3. Was Wells’s idea of the future correct? Is there an Over-world and Under-world? What might our Over-
world cover?
4. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” What is meant by this well-known idiom? Would Wells agree or
disagree?
Cite evidence from the story to support your argument.
5. Based on the Time Traveller’s personality, why does he decide to go further into the future?
6. Upon returning to his own time, why does the Time Traveller refer to the buildings he sees as “petty and
familiar”?
7. How do the dinner guests react to the Time Traveller’s story? Is their reaction predictable? Who believes
the story?
How do the Medical Man and the Editor explain the story?
8. What evidence is there in the smoking room that the Time Traveller’s story may be true?
9. Where does the Time Traveller finally travel?
10. Reread the first page of the Epilogue. What does the narrator mean by, “If that is so, it remains for us
to live as though
it were not so”?
11. Does the novel predict a future nuclear or atomic holocaust? How?